“He said nothing, sir, to throw any light upon the matter; but when I accidentally met him, as I have already mentioned, he appeared much agitated, his features were unusually pale, and characterised by an expression—I should almost say of horror.”
“Have you any knowledge of the house he was leaving? Why do you hesitate?”
“I will tell you frankly, General Grant,” returned Lewis, drawing himself up and meeting the General’s scrutinising glance with a clear, steadfast gaze. “For some time past Lord Bellefield and I have not been on good terms together. Since I have lived beneath your roof he is the only person who has treated me ungenerously, or caused me to feel the full bitterness of my dependent situation. Respect for you, and a sense of my own position, have prevented my resenting his lordship’s conduct as under other circumstances I might have done, but enough has passed between us to prove that we regard each other with no very friendly feeling.”
“I was not at all aware of this—you should have told me this sooner, Mr. Arundel. I allow no one to be treated discourteously in my house,” interrupted the General hastily.
“I should not have mentioned the fact now, sir,” replied Lewis calmly, “had I not been anxious to explain to you why it is in the highest degree repugnant to me to be forced by circumstances to appear as Lord Bellefield’s accuser, and thus lay myself open to the suspicion of being actuated by malicious motives.”
“No one who knew you would imagine that, sir,” returned the General; “but the truth should always be spoken regardless of consequences, and you must yourself perceive how important it is that I should form a just estimate of Lord Bellefield’s conduct in this affair.”
Lewis paused a moment in reflection, and then replied, “The part I have taken in this business was none of my own seeking, nor do I see that I am bound by any obligation of honour to withhold from you the only other fact of which I am aware in regard to the matter. I do happen to know the character of the house which Lord Bellefield was leaving, for as I walked down to the Palaeontological Society this afternoon with my friend Richard Frere, he pointed it out to me as a gaming-house of some notoriety.”
The expression of the General’s face, when he became aware of this uncomfortable little fact, grew so stern, that a distressed artist, wishing to paint some Roman father sacrificing his son, would have given all the small change he might have happened to have about him at the time for one glimpse of that inflexible countenance. Suggestive, however, of evil as was this circumstance, the whole affair appeared wrapped in such a veil of mystery that neither General Grant nor Lewis could, as they that night lay awake revolving the matter in their anxious minds, arrive at any satisfactory hypothesis by which to account for Lord Bellefield’s extraordinary behaviour. The following paragraph, which appeared in several of the Sunday papers, and was recopied in the “Morning Post” of Monday, was the first thing that tended to enlighten them; it was headed “appalling suicide.
“As our columns were going to press we received intelligence of one of the most awful catastrophes which it has ever been our melancholy duty to record; we refer to the untimely decease of Captain Mellerton, of the——th foot, who perished by his own hand in a notorious gambling-house not far from Charing Cross. As far as we have been able to ascertain the facts of the case, the unfortunate young gentleman, who was adjutant of the——th, lost a considerable sum of money (it is said £12,000) to Lord B—f—d, a nobleman of sporting notoriety, at the first Newmarket meeting. Being unable to meet so large a call upon his finances, he was induced in an evil hour to speculate with some of the regimental money committed to his charge, intending to replace it by the sale of an estate in Yorkshire; and having thus satisfied the demands of his noble creditor, he was on Saturday last unexpectedly called upon to send in his regimental accounts. In this extremity we have heard it rumoured that he was induced to apply to Lord B—f—d, as the only person on whom he had the slightest claim; but if we have not been misinformed, the appeal was vain, and urged to desperation by this failure of his last hope, the unfortunate young man repaired to the gaming-house in which the rash act was committed, played deeply, and when fortune again declared against him, drew a loaded pistol from his breast, and before the bystanders were aware of his design, terminated his existence by blowing out his brains. Captain Mellerton was the eldest son of the Honourable H. Mellerton, of Harrowby Park, Beds., and was shortly to be married to Miss A——— D—————, daughter of Sir ————— D—————, the wedding-day being fixed immediately after the commencement of the recess.”